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Comb the Feelings Through Your Hair is out today on Western Vinyl. I’ve already said enough about it elsewhere so I’ll just add that it was sad making an album without one of my best friends but I got to make it with two of my other best friends. I think it’s our best album. Oh, and almost none of the songs are autobiographical, so NAH.

So it’s over. Our home for 7+ years is done. We were pushed out by a magazine. It’s just a building, I suppose, and I’ve never really been sentimental about buildings but I am about this one. It’s INSANE to think about walking into a building for the first time, and how things just go from there, shaping your life, introducing you to new best friends that you’ll never ever be disconnected from. It’s insane to think of what time does/is. It’s been an absolute honor to be with and work with and play with all of the DBA-ers for so long. I hope Mack was still in there alone when the contractors came this morning.

Meanwhile, we’re putting out our new album, Comb the Feelings Through Your Hair, early next year. It was, I think, the last album ever recorded at Death by Audio, but I could be wrong about that, and it’s not a distinction I’m happy about anyway, since I wish there would be a zillion more. It’s going to be out on Western Vinyl on February 17 (from which you can preorder). You can see the album art and tracklisting here, and listen to a song here. Things end and things begin.

I first visited Death by Audio in July of 2007 when my band at the time was supposed to play a show there, a benefit for Showpaper, with Dirty Projectors. We had to back out but my bandmate Emily and I attended anyway, just to check the space out. I’ve never been so sad that we couldn’t play a show in my entire life. The Projectors played a set consisting of Dave on a quietly amped electric guitar, and Amber and Angel flanking him. They played on the side of the room, standing on crates, all songs from their new album at the time, Rise Above. It was gorgeous, special, and stiflingly hot. I had been to DIY shows in New York before, but this felt different—more intimate, freer, and even less elitist than the lowest-key shows I’d attended or played up to that point.

When Emily moved in with the people behind throwing the shows and running the space a couple months later, I started hanging out there, more or less, all the time (especially once I lost my job). Our band started practicing in the room that was built out in the back as a studio/practice space. We recorded albums there. I started building pedals there with the Death by Audio effects company. The people there became my best friends and the people I wanted to bounce ideas off of more than any others. We threw parties and went on tours together. We put out records and tapes together. I always knew they were coming from a place of integrity, where money was among the last concerns. If there was a big show at DBA, it wasn’t for petty credibility, so that anyone there could say, “Look who we got to play our place!” It was because they genuinely wanted to see that show, so why not put it on yourself?

At an early-ish age, I had read Michael Azerrad’s landmark document Our Band Could Be Your Life, and, for years, had looked for people that I could live that book’s world out with (as much as that could be done, 20 years into the gentrification of the indie world’s structural microcosm). I had finally found it at Death by Audio. If we imagined something, we would work towards making it. If we wanted something to be a certain way, we would work to ensure that it was that way. This was community, this was freedom, this was punk.

I say this as though I were at the absolute center of this, which I wasn’t. I was pretty fucking close, but the center was Oliver Ackermann, Edan Wilber, and Matt Conboy. The first started his own line of effects pedals from scratch. The latter two created, curated, maintained, and loved a venue into existence for over seven years at ground zero of a vastly morphing economic and social landscape. Gavin Schneider and Dorie Van Dercreek worked door or bar at nearly ever show, fleshing out the sense of community, even family (Burgers Rana and Josh Intrator as well).

This labor of love was never the flashiest or most famous of the venues in the area, but I think that if you stretch out the timeline that these venues exist(ed) over, you’ll plainly see that Death by Audio was the most loved for the longest amount of time. I don’t write this to say anything along the lines of “Ours was best!,” but rather, I think it shows that what’s often most endearing and enduring in our world are things that last longer with slightly lower burn. DBA never had a backstage, gave guarantees, or treated anyone as more or less than (unless they were being a complete asshole, ruining it for everyone else. Then, get the hell out!). There were people scheduled to play who were doing a secret show after playing the Late Show, and there were people scheduled to play who couldn’t rub two fans together if they tried. Generally, the glue that held this together was Edan liked the music, never the hype.

I could never overstate how freeing this was, to have a spot like this, a group of friends like this, a community like this. I can’t imagine it’ll ever really be the same again.

I really only like Fall. It’s the only time of year I don’t loathe outright or get tired of really quickly. Here are some of my favorite albums (though not necessarily my favorite by whatever band/artist) to listen to in the only time of year I like.

Death by Audio is our home as a band. We practice there, record there, play shows there, build effects pedals there. It’s going away in late November. Change can be good, especially for bands, but this is still really sad. Rare is the day we haven’t been there in the last 7 years. Going to miss it dearly.More to come.